Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Chasing Grace – A Band Review

The writing of this post began with the intent of being a collection of relatively recent releases entitled “Free.” The bands with tracks having that title include Rudimental, Concrete Blonde, Before the Brave (San Francisco’s own), Angel Olsen, Ryan Vail and Folkadelphia. The problem was that we couldn’t stop replaying “Free” by Chasing Grace. So, we started exploring other offerings by Chasing Grace, and the blog’s focus shifted.

In a live setting, we are fans of bands that feature instruments in general and guitars in particular. On the other hand, when listening to music in the comfort of the home or while driving, it’s vocalization that is more likely to attract attention. Well, Chasing Grace is vocally strong, so it isn’t a surprise that we fell within the gravitational pull of their song “Free.” Still, we are surprised at the strength of the pull.

Thanks to the Soundcloud waveform, the pauses within “Free” are visible. At the 0:45 and 1:48 marks, the song momentarily halts its attractive male/female harmonization, only to come back with even greater vocalization richness. In comparison, at 1:16, the “restart” is a relatively quiet band “Hey” and a female solo. So, we started listening to the other songs of Chasing Grace and found “Trust,” with its vocal swells. Then, “Bullet” and “We Say.”

The members of Chasing Grace are Phil Plested, Grace Ackerman, Phil Leigh and Matt Holmes. They are based in Watford, U.K.